Parents' perspectives of technology‐mediated parent–school communication: A review

Abstract As parents are important stakeholders in students' education, knowing parents' perspectives on technology‐mediated parent–school communication can prevent parent–school miscommunication. However, there are limited reviews examining parents' perspectives on technology‐mediated parent–school communication. Therefore, this review aims to fill in the research gap to investigate parents of K‐12 students' perspectives of technology‐mediated parent–school communication in terms of: (1) their usage of technology, and (2) the effect on parental involvement and students' learning outcomes. Fifty‐one studies were included as the result of the literature search from articles in databases and manual searches. This review suggested that parents preferred to use email, but preferred phone calls or face‐to‐face to discuss students' negative behaviour. Parents found technology beneficial for its instantaneity and convenience, were concerned about the lack of technological access and cultural barriers, overcommunication, and privacy and security of students' information, and may be enabled by technological training. This review also indicated that technology‐mediated parent–school communication mostly enhanced parental involvement, may enhance parent–school communication during COVID‐19 which may promote parental involvement, and mostly enhanced students' learning (e.g., motivation, engagement, grades). This provided evidence from parents' perspective on the mixed findings in the literature. To foster equity, schools should promote inclusive and culturally sensitive communication using technological affordances. Schools should also implement policies for the use of technological platforms to communicate with parents. Furthermore, this review hinted that when parents communicate with teachers, parental involvement and students' learning may be enhanced by visible learning. Context and implications Rationale for this study: There are few reviews investigating parents' perspectives of technology‐mediated parent–school communication. Why the new findings matter: The findings on parents' usage of technology may prevent parent–school miscommunication. The findings that technology‐mediated parent–school communication mostly enhanced parental involvement and students' learning offered evidence from the parents' perspective for the mixed findings. Implications for practitioners and policy makers: The implications for researchers are that this review extends technology‐mediated parent–school communication literature by suggesting that when parents communicate with teachers, parental involvement and students' learning may be enhanced by visible learning. The implications for practitioners are that to foster equity, schools should promote inclusive and culturally sensitive communication using technological affordances. Schools should also implement policies for the use of technological platforms to communicate with parents. Schools can also address parents' concerns, build on parents' preferred use of technology, benefits, and enablers of technology to achieve deep levels of parental involvement and students' learning outcomes.